Kolkata, Jan 11: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee raked up the ‘ghost of Godhra’ against Prime Minister Narendra, accusing him of spreading communalism in her state. Mamata said that West Bengal would not turn into a communal hotbed as the workers of Trinamool Congress (TMC) would counter all attempts to create a Hindu-Muslim divide. “We are not afraid of rioters, Modi babu. He has not taken any lessons from Godhra riots,” Banerjee was quoted as saying by ANI.

The statements of Banerjee comes couple of days after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) National Executive accused the West Bengal government of playing the ‘politics of extreme appeasement’. They claimed that the TMC regime were leaning towards one minority community which forms its core vote bank.

Referring to the recent riots in West Bengal’s Dhulagarh, the BJP resolution passed at National Executive said, “Government machinery has been misused to allow the perpetrators of communal violence go scot-free if not clandestinely support them. The failure of the TMC government in Bengal in safeguarding the majority law-abiding community is most glaring in the recent Dhulagarh riots where the rioters went about torching houses and shouting slogans like Pakistan Zindabad while the state police had looked the other way.”

The Dhulagarh riots reportedly occurred on December 13, when two religious groups clashed with each other. Official details from the riots are awaited.

According to veteran Bengali journalist Jaideep Mazumdar, a group of Muslims who were leading a procession to celebrate Prophet Muhammad’s birth anniversary clashed with Hindus in Dhulagarh who were observing Margashirsha Purnima. “Banerjee’s blatant appeasement of Muslims is not only causing acute heartburn among Hindus, but has also emboldened the minority community to attack Hindus at many places,” he said in his column for SwarajyaMag.

Mamata Banerjee government has also been accused of preventing the dissemination of information from Dhulagarh. The fact-finding teams of BJP and CPI(M) were not allowed to reach the spots in Dhulagarh which were worst affected by the riots, citing law and order issues. However, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury addressed a gathering some distance away from the sensitive zone in Dhulagarh. “In 40 years, Left front never allowed communalism to make an entry into West Bengal. But for the sake of electoral politics, TMC and BJP are sowing the seeds of division. We demand immediate action against the perpetrators, irrespective of which ever community they belong to,” Yechury said.